


A Dangerous Thing

by snowkatze



Series: The Witcher One-Shots [9]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Wound Cleaning, broken bones are being set
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27052510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowkatze/pseuds/snowkatze
Summary: Just when Geralt thinks he might have a good day for once, he is surprised by drowners and has to fight them off without weapons. Jaskier wants to take care of his wounds and Geralt is sure the only reason for that can be that Jaskier wants to pay him back for letting him come along on his travels. (Jaskier doesn't quite agree.)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: The Witcher One-Shots [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199216
Comments: 19
Kudos: 308





	A Dangerous Thing

Geralt is humming under his breath, just quiet enough that Jaskier will not hear him over the current. Jaskier, who is leaning back against the rocks on the bank of the river and playing a song on his lute, one of the old favorites. Geralt watches him over the water, only interrupting himself briefly when he drags his shirt over his head and throws it to the side. Glowing, he thinks. Jaskier is glowing in the light of dawn, red illuminating him like visible magic.

He sighs deeply, contently, and runs his hands over his wet arms. This will get Jaskier off his back about the smell for at least three days. Washing is a low-priority activity, fairly useless in the scheme of things, so the fact that Geralt is doing it anyway rightfully earns him a reprieve from Jaskier’s lectures on cleanliness and hygiene, and _Melitele, Geralt, is there at least a chance you heard about the existence of soap, even in passing?_

Maybe later, Geralt can hunt for deer in the forest. Or even fish right here in the river. He wouldn’t have to go far. They could make a fire in the spot Jaskier is sitting and lay their bed rolls right next to each other under the starry sky. Geralt lets a smile curl in the corner of his mouth like a small secret.

It’s ridiculous, really. All over the continent, men lie and start wars and make foolish mistakes to get what they want, when all anyone really needs is something like this, the sun on your bare back, one of Jaskier’s songs in your ear. There’s nowhere Geralt would rather-

“Geralt!”

Air – water in his lungs – no air – hands clasping his hair – where’s the fucking air – claws hooked deeply into his shoulder, there’s no -

Strength always concentrated, but the fingers are everywhere, grasping his legs, around his wrist, precision is impossible, Geralt can only buck upwards, feet lashing out, his whole body shaking. One of them grabs his hands and tugs, and it hurts and he screams only he doesn’t because no sound comes out and more water pours into his mouth.

Fuck.

It’s drowners, bloody drowners, dragging him under. Where is he?

He’s a child, he’s supposed to fight, no, survive, but he’s only a child and the water is everywhere and they won’t let him lift his head. Survive. A body only learns when it has to.

He swallows more water, everything is black, but it must be drowners, musn’t it? Corpse-like, fish-like humanoids. That’s what they’re doing, they are drowning him. Teeth grazing over his calves.  
His body is small and he is screaming at his lungs to grow the fuck up, to hold enough air to make it through, because he has to make it through. He is under water for months, he doesn’t try to come up, he stops squeezing his eyes shut. Poison in his blood, yellow-eyed, he came up after minutes and did not drown and was not a boy.

He is -

He has to get a grip. He presses his lips together and starts holding his breath. One elbow hits the drowner’s stomach and it eases its grip. He struggles with his whole body, until the fingers slip from his legs and he can come up – finally, finally come up and breathe again.

With a few quick strides, he’s on land again and he stumbles backward, his movement still not as smooth as he would have liked. He counts three of them and they close in on him.

And he –  
doesn’t have a weapon  
doesn’t have a plan  
doesn’t have the slightest amount of common sense, what moron would leave his weapons at camp, would listen to the birds, would take off his shirt -

He won’t be subdued so easily, not by drowners, he could kill those in his sleep. He casts Aard to knock one of them backwards and Igni on the other two so they go up in flames.  
He should have been able to smell the foul stench from miles away, should have heard the water moving around them, should have seen them in the corner of his eye, he should have sensed them some way, any way.

A punch straight over the ugly grimace knocks its head back. It doesn’t matter. He closes his fingers around the thing’s throat and lets his other fist rain down. He will learn from his mistakes. The drowner’s eyes start bulging, its pale skin turning to gray. It _doesn’t_ matter. He won’t let his swords out of his sight again. He will keep a dagger in his boots. (He won’t take off his boots.)  
He lets go off the drowner’s lifeless body once he is sure it _is_ lifeless and gets up, still breathing heavily.

“Jaskier,” he says.

Jaskier is still where he was, only now his eyes are wide and his lute is the wrong way around in his hands, like a haphazard weapon. One quick glance tells Geralt all he needs to know – that Jaskier is safe. The drowners didn’t get to him. He is still whole.

The breath leaves Geralt’s body.

He frowns deeply, then, and walks over to one of the rocks by the river to sit down on. He doesn’t spare Jaskier any more glances. It was all his fault anyway, with his dumb lute-playing and his hang-ups on bad smells. With his contagious idiotic optimism and perpetual good mood. A mood so good even Geralt could feel it and isn’t that just hilarious? He shouldn’t have moods, good or otherwise. He should only listen and watch and ignore anything even remotely resembling a feeling. Eyes on the path. That’s all that’s important.

He is aching all over now, which puts a bit of a damper on his plans. None of it seems bad enough to require tending to, but for a while the pain will slow him down. If only Jaskier hadn’t been there, none of this would have happened. Geralt growls silently.

“I’m sorry,” says Jaskier.

Geralt huffs, presses a bit of bitterness through his nose.

“You should be.”

Finally, too curious not to, Geralt turns his head to look at Jaskier, too reachable over the short distance between them. The last rays of sun still make him look other-worldly. It’s just not fair.

“I -” Jaskier puts down the lute, seemingly irritated to be holding it. “I don’t know what was happening, suddenly I was just frozen – and I didn’t now what to do and I couldn’t think and then it was over so quickly. I should have grabbed one of your swords, done something, anything, other than just stand there like an idiot.”

Geralt’s mouth drops open. “What?”

He shuts it with a snap, suddenly, impossibly, angrier.

“Are you insane? Are you honestly telling me you feel bad now that you don’t have a death wish? You get to live another day. How tragic. The whole country is weeping.”

Geralt shakes his head and continues: “For Melitele’s sake, Jaskier. If you came closer and made me protect you as well, we might have both died. You should have just run.”

Run from the drowners or better yet, run from him. That’s what would have saved Jaskier, could save him still. He doesn’t have to die violently, die tragically, die young. No one ever chose this life for Jaskier. He can walk away. But Jaskier is bristling.

“And leave you to the drowners? I think not. I know friendship is a foreign concept to you, but some of us try not to be complete bastards all the time.”

“Listening to common sense is not bastard behavior, it’s smart.”

Jaskier tilts his head at that. “Well, I _did_ turn by back on the academics.”

“Apparently, you turned your back on being alive.” Each word hurts more than the wounds on his body, but Geralt can’t stop spitting poison. “Honestly, if you had tried to participate in the fight and somehow made it through, I’d have killed you myself for being so stupid.”

“And you’re surprised no one ever offers to help you,” Jaskier has turned to him fully, a stoic look on his face. “Is this how all Witchers respond to affection? With scathing insults and threats of violence? No wonder people throw tomatoes at you.”

Affection? Geralt is supposed to be insulted, he’s pretty sure that was Jaskier’s intention, but his mind is stuck on this one word. _Affection?_

“I’m not surprised,” Geralt says, just to say anything. “I don’t need anyone.”

Jaskier only scoffs and does not dignify him with an answer. Instead, he just scrutinizes him. Geralt almost balks at his measuring glances.

“That’s enough of that,” Jaskier says softly and steps closer, which he shouldn’t, because Geralt is sitting by the water and any minute drowners could leap out of it and drown them both. “It’s over now, I didn’t do anything and you got hurt. Just… Just let me -”

Geralt flinches back at Jaskier’s reaching hand. He won’t be coddled. He’s not broken yet, the pieces are still holding together. Jaskier has got the wrong of it – Geralt doesn’t need to be fixed. So what if he can’t even tell where he is bleeding from? So what if he can already feel the bruises forming beneath his skin? Geralt’s skin will mend itself eventually. There’s no use in tending to wounds that will have to do the hard part themselves one way or another, only in carrying on.  
“Don’t,” he tells Jaskier and turns to the river, ducks down to the water. He was here to wash, so he will wash again.

This is not pain. Geralt has had half his ribs bruised and the other half broken. A werewolf once took out a whole chunk of his leg. He has been stabbed below his heart and barely survived it. He has held a red-dripping dagger in his hand, could wipe off the blood - but never the guilt. He has seen Jaskier on the brink of death, pale like a corpse. This is not pain.

(The dizziness will pass if he closes his eyes for a moment.)  
(So long as a sword is sharp, it does not need to be clean.)

And he drips away into the sand. His jawline washes away, not a word to be said. Turning dirt an ugly red.  
He drips and loses himself. There goes the price, there goes the pain, there goes the monster that was a boy a long, long time ago. His lips drip away, not a word to be said, in the angry sand.  
A little less shape, a little more nobody. Dripping away.  
The scratch on his thigh, deeper than he thought, starts to burn. Let it, Geralt thinks. Let it burn. The scratches hurt, but so do the scars. The bruises ache, but he’s had them before. He barely feels them anymore.

He reaches over to rub his side, but a stab of pain shoots through him – the groan is out before he can stop it. And Jaskier heard, of course. He never listens except at the most inconvenient times.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Jaskier says and Geralt can hear him coming closer.

Why does he always come closer to things that will only hurt him in the end?

“It’s nothing.”

He’d forgotten about his hand. It hurts, of course, but it is a dull throb among everything else. He chances a downwards glance but quickly looks away again. Surely his hand is not supposed to hang away at that angle.

“Then why the whine of agony?”  
Jaskier, unbearably gentle, reaches out toward Geralt’s arm where one long scratch bleeds profusely and Geralt bats his hand away, with the hand that doesn’t feel numb.

“You could barely hear me,” he tries to argue.  
“Okay, then why the small, tiny, hardly-audible _whine of blasted agony_?”

Why is Jaskier so stubborn in his pity?

“Might have broken my wrist,” Geralt admits.  
“Oh,” Jaskier says dumbstruck, then waves his hands around furiously. “Oh! Did you, now? And that was not in any way worth mentioning?”  
“I can handle it.”

Geralt switches to rub at his rib cage with his other hand, but he brushes against his hurt wrist and has to bite down on his lip not to gasp again.

“Clearly,” he can hear Jaskier say.  
“I have healing powers.”  
“So do us mere humans, it’s called taking care of yourself. _And_ your wounds. And it’s not like you can just snap your fingers and tada – wounds all gone. You’re still in pain.”

Jaskier is in front of him again, thinking he’s _weak_ , thinking he needs something he doesn’t. Jaskier brushes the hair out of his eyes and holds his shoulders steady and each of his touches is inexplicable and foreign.

“How about,” he says gently, as though to a child, “we give your fascinating healing powers some guidance? Hm?”  
“You want to set my broken bones?”  
“I’d count that as a step of improvement!”

Geralt grunts, but he’s tired now. Letting Jaskier perform his useless healing rituals will be easier. And Geralt has never had the stamina to protest against whatever has gotten into Jaskier’s head.

“Just a minute,” Jaskier says and flurries off, toward their bags.  
Geralt sinks down on one of the rocks, exhaling sharply and feeling like he just fought another battle and lost.

Why is Jaskier so insistent on this? Jaskier has always insisted on all kinds of non-sensical ideas, on accompanying him on monster hunts, on following him from town to town. But he has no benefit from this. Or is it about keeping a Witcher happy? Making him more agreeable?

 _Non-sensical ideas._ Geralt never knows how to say no to him. Might that be it? A thanks, a gift? No. A price. Geralt lets him stay and in exchange… This. Touching a Witcher. Caring for him, against his every instinct. Yes, that makes sense, but also – (red-dripping dagger, broken ribs -)

Jaskier returns quickly and holds up a piece of cloth in front of Geralt’s mouth, clearly intending for Geralt to bite down on it.

“Here.”

Geralt can feel the annoyance rise in him again. “I don’t need -”

“A tongue? I beg to differ, even if you don’t use it much.”

Geralt rolls his eyes, but he takes the piece of cloth anyway. Jaskier puts a piece of wood against the underside of his arm and Geralt lets out a small hiss when it touches his wrist.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Jaskier says, voice high. “Geralt? Am I doing this right?”  
“I’m not sure. I know how to fight. Was never too concerned with the aftermath.”

Geralt knows the basics of course, knows how to get hurt and keep fighting anyway, but he isn’t familiar with the details.

“You’ll have to push it back into place.”  
“That’s what I was afraid of.”

Geralt puts the piece of cloth between his teeth. Jaskier turns white when he looks more closely at Geralt’s limp hand – (white as a corpse, as pain disguised as bravery, as a cursed wish) – but he takes Geralt’s hand, almost as gentle as a lover’s touch, and Geralt can barley feel it but something warm rises up in his chest.

(Jaskier has already paid, hasn’t he? In blood, in headaches, in those small hurt expressions on his face.)

“Oh my,” Jaskier mumbles, “I should have just become a – oh wait, I _am_ a bard. Why do I have to deal with this again?”

Geralt would tell him he _doesn’t_ have to, if it weren’t for the dry fabric in his mouth. But then Jaskier pushes and Geralt screams, only that he doesn’t because no sound comes out. In a second, it’s over and his hand looks less like it’s hanging from a string.

(And Jaskier still holds on to his hand, for one moment, two, three, four -)

“Now imagine your crazy Witcher powers had grown your bones together in that position – the water hags would have been very impressed,” Jaskier says with an invisible smile.  
“Hm.”

Finally, Jaskier wraps some bandages around Geralt’s arm and a few around his palm, keeping the piece of wood in place. Geralt doesn’t know what to do with this kindness.

Pain is easy. Pain is passive. You only need to endure it. You don’t need to talk to it. You don’t need to be afraid of scaring it off.

Once Jaskier has secured the bandages, Geralt moves to turn away again, glad the whole ordeal is over, glad he doesn’t have to see the horror in Jaskier’s eyes any longer, but Jaskier grabs his elbow to make him pause. (Again, so gently, like Geralt is breakable – no one has ever seen him this way, something must be wrong with Jaskier’s head.)

“No, no, I’m not letting you off so easily,” Jaskier says.

(But he doesn’t want Jaskier to grit his teeth.)  
(He wants to be paid in laughter and lute melodies.)

Jaskier won’t be subdued by his glares. Instead, he grabs a bottle of alcohol from his bag and brings it to the wide gash on Geralt’s arm. The liquid runs over the wound, burning him.

Pain is the price. And Geralt doesn’t want to owe anything, so he always pays. Sticks and stones in exchange for yellow eyes. Bruises and broken bones in exchange for brute strength. Heart like tender meat in exchange for a bit of magic. Geralt doesn’t accumulate debt, he pays and pays and pays. (If he didn’t, if he let the debt grow, he might not live through paying it off.)

Jaskier wraps him in more bandages and each point Jaskier touches with his fingertips burns too. Each brush hurts sweetly.

_Ease me, placate the darkness in me, satisfy my pain._

Jaskier moves on to the scratch on his thigh. He moves the fabric of Geralt’s trousers and pours more alcohol. Geralt holds still and holds his breath. He can’t intrude on this moment. It could pop like a bubble if he made any movement that wasn’t careful.

_Ease me, calm the storm in my mind, humor my misery._

For a moment, it hurts more, but then it hurts less. It’s not the alcohol or the bandages, it’s those touches, the tender ones that Jaskier bears for him out of a misguided sense of honor.

_Ease me. Take me apart slowly and take care in putting me back together._

Once every wound is treated, Jaskier is standing close to Geralt and he looks up at him with wide eyes, like he hasn’t even noticed it.

_You, with your soft smiles and your beautiful eyes, I can not touch you. I would absorb you. I would devour you. I will be your predator, just look at your small hand next to mine._

Jaskier has soft looking hair, but here is what Geralt does not touch: clean silk clothes. Porcelain dolls. Dainty flowers. Anything he wants to keep whole.

And then, as if he has to give Geralt anything more, Jaskier takes a rug and one of his expensive soaps and lets them hover above Geralt’s skin, asking for a permission he does not need. Geralt knows he should put a stop to it here, should have put a stop to it right after he set his wrist or before, but nobody has ever touched him like this. He lets the protest rest in his mouth, feels the bitter taste of it on his tongue.

_(Don’t feel obligated. I know you want to pay me back, but you don’t owe me a thing.)  
(I won’t be your currency, don’t let me be your pain.)_

Jaskier moves behind Geralt and starts washing his back in circular motions. Geralt braves the touches like he braves any fight. One minute the world is kind, the next it could be scratches or even a knife. That’s how it goes. But the movements continue and his skin stays whole.

But then – and this might be too much to bear – Jaskier steps in front of him again – and how could Geralt let Jaskier touch him and have to look at him?

Jaskier seems reluctant too, his hand hovering right above Geralt’s chest, right where -

_Please don’t touch my battered heart, please… Is it not enough it keeps beating? Slowly, but beating?  
Thrum… Thrum… Thrum…  
Barely, but beating.  
I will let you touch my calloused hands, I will let you wash my hair, but please don’t reach into my chest, I couldn’t bear it._

When it comes to this, Jaskier is not merciful. He puts the cloth onto Geralt’s chest and lets it rest there. Geralt wants to say he can do it himself, but his mouth won’t open.

_Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.  
Why must you do this to me? A heart this dark will blacken your hand._

Jaskier starts cleaning him slowly. Each time he moves the cloth, his fingers brush against Geralt’s skin. And each time it burns, with warmth and something shaped like love and Geralt should stop and really look to see that it’s _not._

_thrum thrum thrum  
How could you make demands? It was beating, wasn’t it? What more do you want?_

Geralt wants to catch Jaskier’s wrist, but that would be too much. As if he were in a trance, Jaskier suddenly drops the cloth, but instead of picking it up, he splays his fingers against Geralt’s chest.

_thrumthrumthrumthrumthrum  
Who gave you the right to make my heart human? So quick, so fluttering, so fit for love._

Jaskier keeps his hand there and Geralt is afraid he can feel it, will know a Witcher’s heart is not supposed to beat like this. He can’t stop himself any longer – he places his hand over Jaskier’s, just to hold it, only once. He finds Jaskier’s eyes and they are big from this close.

But he has forgotten what even the children playing in the forest know – when you are looking at something, it can look back.

“Oh,” Jaskier says and looks down at their joined hands in wonder.  
Obviously, he didn’t expect this.

(Jaskier will not love the anvil. He will not love the mill that grinds and grinds. He will love the metal and he will love the grain, but he could never love Geralt.)

Geralt swallows, manages to press out: “Sorry.”

(Geralt is not unfinished. He does not have potential. He is all done, all ready, all used up.)

Jaskier draws his hand away and covers his mouth with it, as though to hold the shock in. Geralt does not sigh. He pays his dues.

“Why are you sorry?” Jaskier’s eyes are still wide.  
“You didn’t ask for this.”

Geralt is almost ashamed, not to feel this way, but to burden Jaskier with it.

“Of course I didn’t ask,” Jaskier says quietly. “You’re… unattainable. But I would have liked to.”  
“But you’re just here for the adventure. Are you saying this because -”

Jaskier has done so much already. What if he’s willing to go further? What if he would give even this to Geralt, thinking he owes it to him? It does not sound like something Jaskier would do, but neither does the alternative.

“I’m here for – for this, for -” Jaskier reaches out to Geralt again. “I mean, _someone_ has to take care of you. You certainly can’t manage it yourself, and where would I be, if – I mean, where would everyone be -”  
“Better off?”  
“No. _No._ Stop being an idiot.”  
“ _You’re_ the idiot. Are you saying you want this?”

Geralt gestures down on himself, half-naked, bruised and scarred. Age in the wrinkles around his eyes, menace in the yellow of them. Everything about him clunky, misshapen. Him and Jaskier like two parts that don’t fit.

“Want it? I lo-”  
Jaskier breaks himself off, but Geralt’s breath still catches. Geralt lifts his uninjured hand to Jaskier’s head and impossibly, Jaskier leans toward him. Jaskier’s hair _is_ soft and Geralt draws a small circle on Jaskier’s cheek.

Geralt can have this, Jaskier seems to be saying, and among all the things he can’t have, this is everything.

“I just want you to live,” Jaskier mutters into the space between their lips. “Not just live. Live _well._ ”

He leans his head closer, until their lips are almost touching. “I want you to take off that gruff uncomfortable armor every once in a while. I want you to let me take care of your wounds, even if I can’t stop you from getting them. And I want you to sit with me. Just that.”

Geralt kisses him and hopes Jaskier knows this is every permission and every demand. _I will let you kiss me and I want to kiss you. You can have my palm. You can have my open back. Just give me this._

And Jaskier does, kisses him like it’s a promise and Geralt hopes that it is. He does that now. He hopes for everything and thinks he might even deserve half of it.

Jaskier is holding his heart in gentle hands and Geralt can’t stop it, but he doesn’t want to. After all these years, it’s on the mend.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked this! I haven't written any Witcher fanfiction in a while even though I really wanted to.
> 
> The title was inspired by Lana Del Rey's song "hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but i have it".
> 
> I appreciate any comment or kudos :)
> 
> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://dancedelion.tumblr.com/)!


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